It’s not every day that you see a grown man in a fox suit writing poems on an old-school typewriter at the farmers’ market. But for Chris Vitiello, Durham’s newest poet laureate, the act is more than just a quirk—it’s his passion.  

For the past 13 years, Vitiello has attended more than 250 events per year as the Poetry Fox. Donning a fur suit and a foam fox head, he sets up anywhere from weddings to corporate offices to farmers’ markets. Visitors walk up, give Vitiello a word and watch as he writes a short, customized poem on the spot.  

  

“I make a living writing poems for people, and I don’t know any other poets who can say that,” he said. “It’s something you don’t grow up in the poetry world even believing could happen.”  

  

Vitiello has amassed a dedicated following as the Poetry Fox, with more than 8,000 Instagram followers as of Oct. 14. He has no shortage of poems to write and will soon write his 56,000th poem. Those who have received Vitiello’s poems connect with language that makes abstract ideas concrete. 

  

“I’m dealing with a lot of big questions in life and have found comfort in poetry before, so I was attracted to the idea of getting a custom poem,” Ana Jafarinia, who requested a Poetry Fox poem, said. “I think when you see that other people have struggled with the same things you have and turned it into art, it’s really validating.”   

  

On Sept. 3, the Durham City Council appointed Vitiello as the city’s newest poet laureate following a recommendation from the Durham Cultural Advisory Board. He was one of 16 applicants for the position. Vitiello will serve in the role through June 2027.   

  

“We wanted someone that is able to express a little bit of Durham. The funkiness that is here and the fun — that is a part of it —- but also someone who has a good track record of being able to write really incredible things and who shows strong advocacy work in the community,” Jose Medrano, vice chair of the Durham Cultural Advisory Board, said.  

  

Medrano said Vitiello’s approachability and active participation in the Durham community made him the perfect candidate for poet laureate.   

  

“There’s this idea that people don’t like poetry or that it’s stuffy or it’s boring, when the reality is people would love to engage with poetry,” D.J. Rogers, Durham’s inaugural laureate, said. “They just don’t know where to find it.”  

  

Vitiello’s task is to make finding poetry in public easy. Obligations for the poet laureate include reading at city-sponsored events and teaching free workshops throughout the community, all of which will be organized around Vitiello’s chosen theme, “Poems Everywhere.”  

 

Vitiello said this theme is important because it exposes the community to language it may not otherwise have access to. 

 

“When people encounter a little scrap of language as they’re going about their day, something happens,” he said. “It provokes a thought, it echoes in your mind — it becomes a little touchstone that you look forward to. People rush through their lives as if it was all errands, but it’s our one shot at existence and experience. A poem in a public space interrupts this and humanizes us.” 

  

North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green, who has known Vitiello for more than 40 years, said his work helps poetry come off the page and into the community by encouraging everyone to be a writer. She hopes that Vitiello’s work will increase the visibility of the literary community in Durham and contribute to Durham’s already thriving arts scene.  

  

“I think it’s important for writers to support other writers,” Green said. “There is enough space at the table for all of us. We should encourage and support and bring along as many other writers as we can if we are in positions of influence and power that allow us to do that.”  

  

In addition to being an advocate for writers, Vitiello said he hopes to bring groups from all sides of the political spectrum together through the unique language of poetry.  

  

“Language, and particularly language in the public space, is pretty fraught nowadays,” he said. “There is a lot of talking and not much listening, and I think poetry is a different kind of voice that uses the side door or climbs in a window instead of trying to burst in the front door.”  

   

Poetry has become his life’s work and purpose, Vitiello said. He hopes to expand the program over the next three years while serving as a good example for subsequent poets laureate.  

  

“Durham is known as a city of trees, a city of medicine, or Bull City, but I’d love for people to start thinking of it as a poetry city —- as a city of poets,” he said. “These are the types of things that I’d like to accomplish in three years.”  

 

Edited by Sydney Brainard and Katie Church